# What does the phrase "pipe dream" mean? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 29, 2004, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-phrase-pipe-dream-mean/231778 "2004-02-29T18:51:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![FunkyFairy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/76d3ee/32.png) [@FunkyFairy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FunkyFairy)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-phrase-pipe-dream-mean/231778/1 "2004-02-29T18:51:11Z")
Yeah the title pretty much says it all… so any ideas? What type of dream is a pipe dream? I wold appreciate all thoughts. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-phrase-pipe-dream-mean/231778/2 "2004-02-29T18:56:29Z")
The question really is: what kind of a pipe are they referring to? And the answer is an opium pipe (or possibly a hashish pipe). ---
**Author:** ![Dahnlor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dahnlor/32/533_2.png) [@Dahnlor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dahnlor)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-phrase-pipe-dream-mean/231778/3 "2004-02-29T19:11:41Z")
I hear “pipe dream” most often to describe unrealistically optimistic ideas. I’ve never heard it used in reference to an actual dream, only as a metaphor. I would assume **Exapno Mapcase** is right about what it literally describes, the pipe being a common way to injest a number of mind-altering substances. It’s a polite way of saying, “you must be high.” D ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-phrase-pipe-dream-mean/231778/4 "2004-02-29T19:27:47Z")
> [@FunkyFairy](#): > > Yeah the title pretty much says it all… > so any ideas? > What type of dream is a pipe dream? > I wold appreciate all thoughts. Heres’s what the American Heritage Dictionary says: ## "pipe dream n. A fantastic notion or vain hope. [From the fantasies induced by smoking a pipe of opium.]" Ed ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-phrase-pipe-dream-mean/231778/5 "2004-02-29T19:35:07Z")
It was originally referring to an opium pipe, AFAIK, although, as **Exapno** says, I am sure a hash pipe might’ve been meant, too. Opium smokers would watch their lives rot away in opium dens while caught in the high dream that everything was fine… ---
**Author:** ![donkeyoatey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47c2d/32.png) [@donkeyoatey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/donkeyoatey)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-phrase-pipe-dream-mean/231778/6 "2004-02-29T19:37:16Z")
I think **Exapno Mapcase** has it. Here’s what [word-detective](http://www.word-detective.com/042702.html) says: > [@](#): > > However, and this is a great big “however,” the fact that “pipe dream” originally referred to opium does not make it a “drug reference” today. “Pipe dream” has been in common use for more than 100 years and has long since lost any connotation of illicit behavior. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-phrase-pipe-dream-mean/231778/7 "2004-02-29T22:14:55Z")
Where’s the controversy here? The first cite is as follows “…instead of being consigned to the watebasket as the “pipedream” of an opium devotee.” This is a story in a US newspaper from 1895. Did not Exapno post it in plain English? ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-phrase-pipe-dream-mean/231778/8 "2004-02-29T22:20:48Z")
> [@](#): > > However, and this is a great big “however,” the fact that “pipe dream” originally referred to opium does not make it a “drug reference” today. “Pipe dream” has been in common use for more than 100 years and has long since lost any connotation of illicit behavior. Yet it was already illegal in some places, even then. Surprisingly, the state of Nevada began cracking down on drugs as early as 1877. Not at all what you’d expect, that. Sorry, no cite, I’m remembering something I read years ago in a long-vanished book. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-phrase-pipe-dream-mean/231778/9 "2004-02-29T22:41:21Z")
Nazi Germany’s V-3 weapon–planned, but never deployed–was a (or several) giant underground cannon(s) in northwestern France for the purpose of lobbing shells a London. Two generations later Saddam Hussein enlisted the aid of ballistics expert Gerald Bull for developing a similar weapon to lob shells at Tehran or Tel Aviv. It also never made it past the test phase. Both cases were examples of pipe dreams, both literally and figuratively. ---
**Author:** ![quiltguy154](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/ad7895/32.png) [@quiltguy154](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quiltguy154)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-phrase-pipe-dream-mean/231778/10 "2004-02-29T22:43:30Z")
Charles Earle Funk concurs on the opium-pipe origin, in his book “Horsefeathers & Other Curious Words.” He cites the apparent first appearance of it in print in Wallace Irwin’s “Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum”[1901]: _To just one girl I’ve tuned my sad bazoo, Stringing my pipe-dream off as it occurred._ Sounds like something else going on here as well. ---
**Author:** ![spingears](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@spingears](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spingears)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-phrase-pipe-dream-mean/231778/11 "2004-02-29T22:52:40Z")
The origins of “Pipe Dreams” are rooted in the opium dens of the Far East when sailors went ashore looking for “trouble.” The result of smoking opium being lost in a fog of one’s imagination and drug induced stupor. Hence anyone with wild unrealistic dreams, proposals etc has them labelled labelled as “pipe dreams” Pipe Dreams = Vast Plans based on half-vast ideas! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-phrase-pipe-dream-mean/231778/12 "2004-02-29T23:11:54Z")
No doubt that the origin lies in the psychoactive properties that opium has and the purportedly wild yet pleasant “dreams” that the user experiences. I threw in the hashish connection because the image of the hookah pipe may have confounded the notion in peoples’ heads in more recent years. Opium dens were once common enough in fiction, especially pulp and detective fiction, but their visible representation in movies was rarer, and almost eradicated after the Hays Code. The hookah pipe lasted longer, especially in an Arabian context, with sheiks and other exotics placidly puffing away. The drug world of the past half-century also skews to a connection of pipes with hash rather than opium. But the answer to the OP’s question is that a pipe dream is an pleasant but implausible idea, so impractical, wishful, or even crazy that only someone smoking opium, or some other drug, could have come up with it. ---
**Author:** ![donkeyoatey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47c2d/32.png) [@donkeyoatey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/donkeyoatey)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-phrase-pipe-dream-mean/231778/13 "2004-03-01T02:43:30Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > Where’s the controversy here? The first cite is as follows > > “…instead of being consigned to the watebasket as the “pipedream” of an opium devotee.” > > This is a story in a US newspaper from 1895. > > Did not Exapno post it in plain English? 😕 Don’t know, why don’t you fuck off to the pit? ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-phrase-pipe-dream-mean/231778/14 "2004-03-01T03:00:27Z")
The thing with a small horizontal surface and a long vertical one with handles at the top, that you tip backwards so the heavy stuff rests on the vertical part, and roll around on two wheels. What’s that thing called? ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-phrase-pipe-dream-mean/231778/15 "2004-03-01T03:01:37Z")
Doh! Hit reply by mistake. Ignore previous nonsensical post. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-phrase-pipe-dream-mean/231778/16 "2004-03-01T03:12:18Z")
> [@donkeyoatey](#): > > 😕 > Don’t know, why don’t you fuck off to the pit? Not pitting anyone, least of all you. Just irritated at the number of mindless posts that can follow a correct answer. Not that I’m not guilty of posting such on occasion. I rather think that “fuck off” is a no-no in this column. ---
**Author:** ![donkeyoatey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47c2d/32.png) [@donkeyoatey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/donkeyoatey)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-phrase-pipe-dream-mean/231778/17 "2004-03-01T03:30:40Z")
My apologies **samclem**. Me, gin and posting aren’t always a good combo. But,all I could find on this said the term referred to opium not hashish as **Exapno Mapcase** said in his first post : [quote] … (or possibly a hashish pipe). ---
**Author:** ![donkeyoatey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47c2d/32.png) [@donkeyoatey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/donkeyoatey)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-phrase-pipe-dream-mean/231778/18 "2004-03-01T03:32:48Z")
[quote] (or possibly a hashish pipe) [quote] ---
**Author:** ![donkeyoatey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47c2d/32.png) [@donkeyoatey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/donkeyoatey)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-phrase-pipe-dream-mean/231778/19 "2004-03-01T03:35:11Z")
:o ---
**Author:** ![xash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c6cbf5/32.png) [@xash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xash)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2004, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-the-phrase-pipe-dream-mean/231778/20 "2004-03-01T20:29:20Z")
**donkeyoatey** , gin or no gin, we do not tolerate this in GQ. Please do not repeat it. Thank you. - **xash** General Questions Moderator